Soldiers fear Agent Orange exposure (from Canada?)

[babylonsister]

Local soldiers fear Agent Orange exposure

Updated: Tuesday, 18 May 2010, 8:03 AM EDT
Published : Monday, 17 May 2010, 11:26 PM EDT


BOSTON (FOX 25 / MyFoxBoston.com) - Thousands of local soldiers may have been exposed to Agent Orange even though they never set foot in Vietnam.

Some of these retired soldiers from right here in Massachusetts are sick, and are wondering if the Agent Orange they encountered at a remote Canadian military base is to blame.

"I'm totally convinced that the government that I worked for knew this stuff before we went there," said Matthew Masnik, a retired Army Reserves colonel suffering from diabetes and other health problems. "They need to do something at least to get the people checked out."

snip//

The Canadian government says only small amounts of Agent Orange, along with Agent Purple, another toxic herbicide, were sprayed in 1966 and 1967. A recent Canadian Defence Department report concluded that, "...most people who lived or worked at (Canadian Forces Base) Gagetown were not at risk for long-term health effects from the herbicides applied there."

But Canadian veterans and even their widows have been battling their government for years, saying the truth about herbicides and Gagetown has yet to come out.

In a lawsuit, veterans and their families say Agent Orange was sprayed more often than the two years the government admits to, exposing people at the base to the defoliant's deadliest component: dioxin.

more...

http://www.myfoxboston.com/dpp/news/undercover/local-soldiers-fear-agent-orange-exposure-20100517